3 luxury hotel marketing gimmicks travelers should look for

Planning trips, looking for inspiration and booking hotels are all happening online, providing amazing opportunities for tricky marketers to sell not so luxurious properties as true luxury hotels.

As the online travel market is becoming more competitive each year, both hotel marketing teams, agencies and booking portals are looking for new ways to secure their business and increase their turnover online.

Unfortunately this often means questionable ethics and bad practices that can cause serious disappointment for travelers who expect sophisticated luxury and exceptional service for their money.

Hotel marketing consultant and e-commerce expert Daniel Diosi will now share 3 common tricks to look for while planning and booking a luxury stay online.

1, Vintage properties

Aging properties that were once considered to be luxury are trying hard to maintain their status and profitability without any significant investment before being demolished or renovated. While these hotels might look well on paper and also have a good reputation from the previous century, modern luxury amenities and facilities such extravagant bathrooms and electronic appliances are very likely to be missing. Rooms and the overall interior can be tired and worn out – offering only the faded glamour of the past. These properties try to capitalize on reputation and perceived value.

What to look for?
• If you are planning to book a vintage luxury hotel, always make sure that it was fully refurbished in the recent past.
• Ensure that the property has all the facilities you need. Modern facilities such as indoor pools, SPA or a well-equipped gym, especially in aging city hotels were not common earlier.
• Make sure to check traveler photos on TripAdvisor to learn the reality about the state of interiors.

2, Non-existent facilities and fake location

Location and facilities are both most important factors that influence booking decision. High end 5-star properties are likely to be situated in the most convenient areas of a destination and offer a wide range of leisure facilities such as pools, SPA, gym and most of the time a private beach.
Some indecent hotel management teams like to promote their hotels with incomplete information about their location and facilities. Sometimes the gym is just 2 streets up, the private beach is just 500 meters away and the SPA belongs to the hotel next door.

What to look for?
• If not booking a trusted brand, always double check that the promoted facilities are on site and not nearby. If the available information is not sufficient then do not even bother.
• Use Google Maps to find the exact location of the hotel
• Check out the reviews on TripAdvisor

3, Faux luxury

Superior, luxury and upmarket became commonly used buzzwords in hotel marketing. While trusted luxury hotel brands do not need to highlight the level of their standards, mediocre or pretending properties try to stand out from the rest by highlighting their qualities.
Travelers who wish to taste luxury are tempted to fall for anything that is told to be luxurious. More often than not, newly refurbished and newly built mid-range hotels will be described with words such as luxurious, prestigious and the very best.

These generally low-end 5-star and high-end 4-star properties are targeting the top segment of the consumer travel market. These travelers are still on a budget but attracted by luxury – even if they can hardly afford it.

What to look for?
• Notice the heavy use of phony expressions and buzzwords such as luxury, upmarket and sophisticated.
• Look for signs of exhibitionism in their advertising which is a tell-tale sign of trying hard.
• Compare rates with trusted brands. If room rates are closer to 4-star and low-end 5-star hotels then it cannot be luxury.

Thank you for Daniel Diosi from dCommerce for sharing these hotel marketing tricks, we hope you will find these insights and tips useful while booking your next holiday. This why all hotels in this section are review by us or someone of our luxury influencers networks, by respect to our readership we spend at least one night inn all hotels reviewed in this section.